After spending a good hour on Pinterest stalking Angelina Jolie while trying to convince myself I was looking for new shoot ideas but actually just fangirling, I came across a photograph of her by Martin Schoeller. Amidst all the beautiful shoots she's done for countless magazines, this photo really stood out among the rest (google Martin Schoeller and you'll see why). I then took to obsessively googling this man I've never heard of up until this point and boy oh boy did I find some of the most beautiful celebrity portraits ever. Like really ever. He's photographed everyone from Usher, to Daniel Radcliffe to Robert de Niro - he's even photographed Obama. For real, this guy takes insanely beautiful pictures. Coming across this new photographer and an endless amount of Google images to browse totally inspired me to take some of my own, real up close and personal, nothing held back, portraits. Luckily, I am fortunate enough to not only have a boyfriend who doesn't mind being poked and prodded, but an entire family who were more than happy to sit down and be man-handled for a bit on a Thursday afternoon. The spontaneous-family-shoot excitement ranged from my mum worrying about her wrinkles being put into high definition, to my dad pulling funny faces and generally just looking like Diglet from Pokemon (seperated at birth I swear), to me flapping about with my greasy hair until it finally looked a little less drowned-rat-esque.
I'm not sure what I'm going to do with these photographs, I just know that it's something I really really want to continue pursuing because the effect is so eye-catching. To me anyway, you all might think they're pretty bloody boring but like I said before- we'd have no fun if we all liked the same stuff. So if you find them boring as watching grass grow - feel free to leave, but if you just love watching grass do its thang, take a look:
^ So firstly, here is the one and only photograph I took of my brother. Being the laidback, couldn't-care-less sort of person that he is, he simply sat down, looked straight at the camera, nailed it, and got up and went back to FIFA all in under 30 seconds. My simplest client yet.
^Me and my beautiful mum. If there's one thing I learnt during this family shoot it's that my mum gave me absolutely nothing in regards to the gene pool. But if I was ever contemplating my own possible adoption, i just gotta look at my Dad's nose to know I'm definitely a Leask. Have a look at his portrait underneath the photograph of my lovely boyfriend below and tell me where I got that nose from. Seriously. Uncanny. It's literally even wonky to the same side. Unreal.
Ahhh, okay admittedly this last one of my dad is bloody scary as hell (see the Diglet reference though!?), but I suppose that's the point really- you can see every single nitty gritty part of the face which is a daunting, but also quite liberating thing. I'd like to also point out that these pictures are all barely retouched, a bit of eye brightness tweaking and overall colour-toning yes, but not one of these images have been airbrushed. The most 'honest' photographs I've ever taken and a totally different approach to photography for me but one I'm really liking the outcome of. I'm happy to say that I'm finally getting the hang of the flash Mikey bought me for my 21st and really starting to see the benefits of flash photography having always been a total believer in natural light. All these were taken with the external flash and I find that the light it brings out in the eyes is really beautiful...finally bright eyes straight out of camera!
Anyway, I would say I'd like to apologize about how up close and unforgiving these pictures are, but I'm not sorry at all. Instead, just enjoy my favourite people in the world in all their detailed glory. Really, really detailed glory. Sorry not sorry.
